I had internet reconnected in my house this past week, but will need to have something done with the cords… I’ll want to move the modem from the casa mica into the casa mare after September. Right now I need a splitter because the internet is using my phone line. No one tries to call my landline—usually—except a few students, partners, and my landlord. So the important people meaning that issue needs to be fixed.

Last night I hosted some of the female health volunteers, a couple English-teaching volunteers, and another American, but non-PC volunteer who works with micro financing/loans in Chisinau thru the non-profit org. Hope International. We fixed a pasta dinner together and had a very nice time. Alex, another health volunteer from Virginia, brought a tiny (very tiny!) puppy she recently found on the side of the road in her village. She—Chewbacca—has her 2 front paws broken and she can only push herself around on the floor with her back legs. She’s the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen and Alex is good for taking care of her. So my host family’s big dog, Dunkin, could see Chewy pushing herself around the patio and garden and was going crazy on her chain trying to escape after the puppy. During the middle of preparing food outside I saw Dunkin dash across the garden—her chain had broken! I screamed and a few of us ran through the garden toward Chewy. I grabbed the puppy before Dunkin got her. Alex grabbed Dunkin’s collar and Dunkin tried to bite her. The puppy was scared to death. I’m really glad Dunkin didn’t have the chance to touch the puppy because I know he would have killed her. We then coaxed Dunkin into the chicken coop and he has been there since. Viorica’s teenage son came over with a rope to try to help us with Dunkin, to put him back on his leash, but when Dunkin saw the kid he became extremely aggressive and we told Grigore (her son) to leave because it’s pretty obvious the dog has a problem with either children or males and I didn’t want him to get mauled. My landlord in Chisinau said that a man would come over today to move the dog back to the tree, but its evening and no one has showed up. I can easily continue feeding and giving water to Dunkin, but I’m afraid he’ll eventually dig a hole under the chicken coop fencing and then destroy the garden. That was the drama of yesterday. To be continued.

When walking my friends to the bus stop we saw my hospital nurse partner, Efimia. She told everyone to come again and come see the village hospital. She’s very friendly and welcoming to me (and even my friends!) and I know I’m lucky in this way. Many of my friends don’t feel welcome volunteering at their hospitals.

This coming Wednesday my club students will be doing something exciting. A couple of weeks back I went with Valentina and some of our club kids to the school near our village for students with disabilities. We met the school director and we had a tour of the school, dormitories (the kids live there), cafeteria, gardens, classrooms, etc. We were welcomed and I hope that our students from the school I volunteer at will continue to have interest in volunteering at this other school. This Wednesday our students will be going back to the school to do health presentations to the students. There are about 80 (if I remember correctly) students and 25 teachers/staff. The students do all of the cleaning in the school and also work in the gardens. It’s interesting to see the different ways people here view “disabilities” or how they define them. People who have special needs that are physical are always grouped with needs that are mental. A distinction is usually not made between them… they are all usually considered as being, in Romanian, “bolnavi” direct translation “sick”. I shouldn’t have found it surprising knowing what I now know about my village and the way of life in Moldova, but I still found myself a bit surprised by the fact that none of our students or Valentina… OR Viorica… have EVER visited this school. The center is only a 10-15 minute walk from the center of my village and these people have lived here all of their lives and this center is a big part of their community where many kids live and learn. Many people do not know how to behave around someone who has any sort of physical or mental [special needs]. There is a large stigma for having disabilities. It leaves people perplexed when I explain that having integrated schools and (often inclusive classroom lectures) is done in the States and seen as a good, healthy thing. Many of the students at our school have special needs (albeit unidentified), but families do not want to send their students to the center because it’s seen as a bad thing. Valentina joked to me on the way back from the school that when her daughter was younger, they used to tell her that if she couldn’t improve her learning they would just have to send her to that other place. So being different is seen as being a bad thing, and receiving extra help is seen as a punishment. Valentina gave me a well meaning few words of preparation “Melissa… some of the kids in here are different and act different… just so you know”. If I were from another part of the world perhaps I would find myself interacting less with people that are different than me, but I feel very fortunate that I’ve most always been surrounded by people who learn differently, behave differently, and have different needs. I was a bit annoyed that Valentina thought that I might need the heads up that the students at the school for students with disabilities (“scoala pentru copii cu disabilitati”) have disabilities instead of thinking perhaps our 7th grade students with us for the tour needed the heads-up. One of the main things I’ve dealt with over the past year is trying to keep my cool and understanding when people I live with assume I know far less about the world than I do. Everything has to be a learning experience for myself and for them and I can’t get angry at people for saying or doing what they don’t mean to be malicious.
So, the presentations this Wednesday will be on personal hygiene and good communication. I’m so excited that the girls are going to peer-teach to another group of children who are not receiving any sort of health education. And it additionally gives people from different places a chance to interact.

This weekend I had really wanted to buy 10 live chickens, but my friend’s Moldovan host mother talked me out of it: “You’re CRAZY in the head.” It’s apparently a lot more work that I thought. Not only giving them the food and water every few hours, but also cleaning their pen/houses, and giving them medications to make sure they stay healthy and that their water and food are healthy for them. I.e. parasite-free. I have a love for fresh eggs and the ones they sell in the store aren’t as good, so hopefully I can just find someone in the village with chickens willing to sell me some of their eggs each week. Fresh eggs are amazing if you’ve never had them. Having chickens would keep me occupied, amused, and full of protein, but it was apparently not the smartest idea.

Two more weeks of class and the school year will be finished.
Less than four weeks and I will have reached my one-year anniversary in Moldova. Twelve more weeks and I will be back in Raleigh to visit family.

I received a card from other older volunteers congratulating me and the others in our group for accomplishing 1 year here. I can’t believe a year has gone by! I can’t believe I’ve come so far. It's pretty cool.